


Dull November Days

by terrestriellie



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort, Couch Cuddles, Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Domestic Fluff, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gavin Reed - Freeform, Gavin Reed Needs a Hug, Gavin Reed Redemption, Gay Disaster Gavin Reed, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Teasing, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, i wrote this while pining, reed900, rk900 is soft, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrestriellie/pseuds/terrestriellie
Summary: Gavin and Conan (RK900) snuggle together on the couch and reminisce on their lives up to this point. Conan questions growing to be alive while Gavin expresses guilt over his past. One thing they are sure about is that they love each other so much.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900 & Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Dull November Days

Gavin Reed always thought Christmas was an absolutely trivial and irritating holiday with perhaps no purpose at all. Growing up, it had been a magical occasion full of gifts and bad christmas films and political debates over dinner. He’d never noticed anything wrong with it as a child, but, as he got older, he grew bitterer. It wasn’t as if it was any fun as a teenager - especially in the times he was living with. Oh, what a joy! 

He hated having excuses, though. Aunts and Uncles sympathised, said it must have been “so hard for him”, having lived with his mom. Friends said he grew up in an unhealthy environment in which he’d been tormented. To Gavin - none of it mattered. He was an asshole and whatever might of caused it was certainly not going to let it slide and no matter how many people told him otherwise, it was an excuse. If it wasn’t, then it meant his mom was entirely justified for screaming at him each year, and for throwing him out. 

The idea that he had been in a “tough situation” was entirely equivalent to “she was raised in a different time” and Gavin did NOT want that phrase to ever, EVER, be acceptable.

Halloween, though? Halloween was fun, even as an adult. You could argue a million points in support of the holiday. For one night a year, you could dress up and pretend to be someone other than your miserable self for the evening and indulge in as many sweets and as much alcohol as possible. You didn’t have to feel childish when buying a massive multipack of orange and black lollipops from the store - the classic “it’s for trick or treaters” was also an excellent part of the holidays. It was easy to ‘accidentally’ buy far too many and eat the rest of them yourself. Of course, there were also the adults who trick or treated, but Gavin was far too lazy to be bothered with that. 

His favourite part of Halloween, though, were the days after. 

It was a tradition for him to book a few days off work for the beginning of November. The Detective never went on Vacation other than this, so it was guaranteed he’d get the time off. He was pretty sure Fowler was just taking pity on him - considering the fact that he didn’t seem to have a life outside of his work, he supposed the man thought this was the only time he had to himself.

Well, that was partly true. 

Typically, he’d spend these days lounging on the sofa with Felicia, his bratty old cat. He’d eat leftover candy and binge watch old tv shows on Netflix from when he was a teenager (which people who were convinced it was an outdated streaming service would scrutinise him for but did he give a shit? Nah. Of course not).

His favourite show to watch was Stranger Things, mostly due to the strange sense of nostalgia it gave him. He hadn’t grown up in the 80s, hell, he hadn’t even been born yet (he was a 2000s kid, through and through) and somehow it still made him feel at home. It was also perfect for the season - not particularly Christmass-y in any way, but it wasn’t set on Halloween either. It was an inbetween sort of series. 

Also, he had definitely had a crush on Joe Keery as a teenager. Not that it was important or anything. 

His mom might have never caught on if he hadn’t made Steve Harrington his lock and home screen. 

Well, his mother could fuck off. 

Conan meanwhile - he didn’t particularly have any traditions. Perhaps that was due to the fact that he’d only truly been alive for three years now - he hadn’t exactly had the time to establish any repetitive annual event. However, he was more than happy to partake in whatever recreational activity his boyfriend saw fit. So, this year, he too was curled up on Gavin’s couch, a ball of fluff sat upon his thighs and an arm lazily strewn around his shoulders.

They’d been dating for approximately 16 months, 4 days and 9 hours now. He was unsure of exactly how many minutes due to the fact that is memory bank only had stores of the quiet, fumbled kiss and there was absolutely no data which stated when the situation had switched from partners to lovers, there was just heat and adoration. Needless to say, he’d relish in the thoughts rather than stress about the possibility that his clock was offset. 

What a strange pair they made - of course, a few years back, the concept of being with an android would have made the Detective vomit. No matter what, he couldn’t deny that he had absolutely despised androids from the moment their creation had been unveiled - sure, as the naive, "not-adult" he had been, the idea of walking, talking, real life artificial intelligence sounded futuristic and ideal. Like many, he’d had the idea with in that rather than replacing them, androids would work alongside humans to help advance other careers. His step brother Elijah, who's mom had married his father, William, had always been passionate about that thing. Somewhere in his heart, he’d believed that not all people were selfish and greedy and that there was not a possibility that androids would replace them. He’d seen androids take the jobs of many and seen the remains of those people on the streets while the rich owners of companies relished in the luxury of a world where they had nobody to pay but themselves. It was fear that drove the bitterness in his bones - he’d worked damn hard and nearly put himself into poverty thanks to college. Passed everyone’s expectations of him. He did not want any android bastards taking that away.

He lost contact with his family for a while after that.

When the androids deviated, he supposed his mind changed. He’d had trouble not being an utter ass to Connor every time he saw the android, but Gavin supposed he would need to fix his attitude problems when he was told he’d be working with Conan.

The first thing he’d noticed upon meeting his now-boyfriend was how different he was to Connor.

Strangely enough, from his height and the way he held himself, Gavin had expected someone a little colder. However, Conan, no matter how snarky and sarcastic he was, was far from stuck up. When it came to appearance, he was surprisingly casual compared to Connor, who kept his hair neat and though had been prompted to begin adopting Hank’s utterly dreadful fashion sense, typically kept to shirts and the occasional tie. His android, however, had waves of curls that fell down and framed his face rather attractively which Gavin couldn’t help but constantly run his hands through (really, everything about Conan was addictive) and opted to wear this sort of… gothic-y sense of style, somehow classy yet soft. Black jumpers and white collars - very Addams family. It helped that he knew his boyfriend knitted them himself.

Like, fuck, how adorable was that? Holy shit!

It was harder for him to joke about Conan’s dorkiness when he knew that the reason for it was much darker than the android liked to let on, but he hoped it would lighten the mood. Truth was, something had shifted within the android. Back in the cyberlife warehouses, before Connor had found him, he’d been left alone in the dark after the buildings were evacuated. Whether he had deviated yet or not is up for debate, all Gavin knew that all that time had made him painfully aware of himself: the tough demeanor, the neat hair, the ridiculous jackets and that uptight sort of expression was just put there to please the people who’d left him in the dark. So he’d separated himself from it entirely - within the first few weeks of working with him, the Detective had seen his partner play around with so many styles - his hair changed every two days in both colour and shape and he went through too many aesthetics for Gavin to count before he’d finally settled on how he looked today.

Black/white sweater, glasses propped on the top of his nose, skinny, black jeans and that messy, raven hair. 

Dammit - he’d fallen hard, huh?

Conan curled his legs up onto the couch slowly, moving to allow Felicia to sit on the side of his thighs, he was probably getting cat hair all over his clothes but he couldn’t care less. He looked up from the novel he’d been paging through (his boyfriend certainly had a thing for classics - paperbacks?) and gazed at Gavin softly. The only sound was the soft purring of the feline and the electronic music whirring from the TV as the title sequence for the first episode of Stranger Things 2 began. He placed the novel down softly on to the coffee table and stretched to reach his arm around the Detective’s shoulders, pressing a small kiss to his temple. “Did you make it through the first series already? We only started yesterday.” He teased. 

“Says you, tin can, could have sworn you went through the entire Stephen King Anthology yesterday.” Gavin retorted, but returned the action and pulled Conan closer to him so his head was low enough to allow him to bury his nose in those curls. 

And it was strange, really. 

There was no way in hell that Gavin hadn’t misbehaved when Fowler made the announcement. Granted, the fact that he was being forced to partner with the android had been the fact that they’d had so much difficulty getting him to partner before. He worked well with Tina: they’d grown up in the same, shitty neighbourhood.

Really, it was a miracle neither of them had criminal records. Morality, huh? He knew he’d have never made it into the academy without it. Though he seemed the opposite, Gavin had never really gotten involved in all that “edgy kid” shit. His mother didn’t exactly allow piercings, the scent of cigarettes around her had put him off touching tobacco and he wasn’t exactly living in the most progressive part of Detroit. Perhaps it was what made him so irritable? So unable to get a partner? Surely - he had trust issues. But, really, fuck off. The Detective knew he didn’t need the redemption. 

So, what to do with him? Fowler usually partnered him with rookies. Problem with that was they moved onto different areas of the department pretty quickly. So - do it the Hank Anderson way: Deviant Edition.

To say Gavin hadn’t complained.. well, if lying was a sin, he supposed he’d go to hell. But the shorter man knew his limits. Unlike Connor, RK900 had come with the full civil rights package - hurting him, killing him, the usual anger you’d take out on androids - it was all classed as assault. And hell if Gavin was risking his job for his own goddamn biases then he really wasn’t fit to be a police officer. Corruption isn’t uncommon when it comes to justice - he didn’t particularly want to become the man he’d held contempt for when his mom had lied in court and removed his father's equal parental custody of him. Plus: he really didn’t want to end up on the streets. Come damn near close to it at age 16 already.

In his eyes, as usual, it was his own selfishness that motivated him.

The memories of their early cases was fuzzy, but from what Gavin could recall, he’d been the one in charge. Discrimination in the workplace doesn’t exactly disappear overnight. And, well. Yeah. He set Conan to simple tasks and took over the main investigation. His priority had been to get the android out of his way in order to do his job. Conan received his fair share of insults, too. Came with the domain. God, he felt like a fool.

Then - 

Android Homicide. 

He could remember it like it was yesterday. They’d been working together for nearly a year at this point. They certainly weren’t friends, he’d admit. Perhaps the spite had dulled down? Rather like a dog, Gavin was a little more bark than bite - and why bark? Attention? Well, certainly, he did not receive it from Conan at all. The relationship had grown from hatred to tolerance. It seemed the taller of the two appreciated the slowing stream of insults and, in return, had proven far more effective in working on cases that the other could have ever imagined. It was an unspoken agreement between them that if they stayed out of each other's way personally they’d be capable of keeping in their working lives. 

But this case was different. In the end, the investigation had stayed in the DPD’s hands for an immense length of time (five months, to be precise) before it had extended to an international threat and was left to the FBI. 

Conan had been… shaken at the scene. 

Initially, Gavin couldn’t grasp it. The first time he’d seen a dead body, he’d nearly spilled his guts out over the evidence. However, the android had been capable of holding his composure at every prior scene. His own sensitivities prevented the man to understand that this was the first time Conan had worked on an android case - in short: it was the first time he’d seen one of his own dead. 

Partly because of his programming, Conan seemed like he wanted to pick away at his chassis - at his own existence. Gavin recalled how his LED had blared red at the site of the case and how he was silent in the car ride back to the precinct. 

He’d wrapped his arm around Conan’s shoulders and looked at him square in the eye.

It was the first of many times he’d see he android cry. 

Gavin remembered how he told him this was normal. How it was okay, ‘you tin can’, because, hey, at least he didn’t vomit on the evidence. That Hank was a son of a bitch for not picking up on the android case like he was supposed to. That he didn’t think Conan was weak for shaking when it came to analyzing thirium instead of blood. 

After that, it was another unspoken rule that they cared. 

The case had extended further than they could have imagined, picking out french manufactured android parts, how the organisation (so devoted it could be considered a cult) had picked apart both humans and androids in order to experiment with cybernetic consciousnesses. Not cyborgs, though. Shells of humans. Shells of androids. They called it life. 

Life, they could both agree, was not what they saw. 

Conan felt his face flush at his partner’s comment. Of course, there was no natural blood rush beneath his casing, but certain lines of plating beneath his synthetic skin glowed up in a gentle, blue hue accordingly. He scrunched his nose in a mockery of offence, silicone wrinkling into paper-fan patterns beneath freckled flesh. The star speckled android leaned to meet his partner’s lips where the detective had began to kiss at his temple.

Gavin’s response was instantaneous. His lips pressed into the softer silicone of the other’s and he felt the synthetic skin there melt away. Smirking with satisfaction, he fumbled for the remote and paused the show. Much to the feline’s dissatisfaction, he turned to face him, brushing Felicia off of his thighs as he did so. 

Gavin traced his fingers vaguely in the shape of constellations over Conan's cheeks.

"You know.. you never told me where you got these."

"Oh-"

It was surprise heard in Conan's voice. Perhaps he was re-ordering the memory banks he had archived in the vague sense of "I could have sworn I'd already spoken about this but perhaps it was a dream" mentality that we all get when we experience deja vu. 

"Well, I always had a few, though not as many as Connor, admittedly - Cyberlife intended for me to be more intimidating, I suppose. But it was when I was staying with Elijah."

Let us take a moment to fully explain how the RK900 unit came to work at the DPD, or, more simply, came to be around in the post-revolutionary world. 

There had been a search through the Cyberlife warehouses a few weeks after humanity gave up the fight. At the time, the general agreement was that Androids were not to be owned, and production was ceased as debates on the ethics of Android replication went forward. Conan's case was a strange one. Due to the nature of his purpose.. well. When they opened the doors, guns were pulled, and all was silent. No 'congratulations, you're free'. Just worry, sitting heavily in the still air. 

Until a voice had sounded from the back. 

Elijah Kamski was certainly a complicated character. From what Conan could comprehend, the ex-CEO had many troubles with how his company had developed over the years, and, minus the crude language, he had not trusted them to not use the unit for something.. let us say, sinister. 

The simply explanation, henceforth, is that due to these circumstances, Conan had been living with the creator of all androids, Gavin's step-brother, and Chloe for the span of about two months. 

Gavin let out a sort of hum. One that indicated that he was listening, which was reassuring, considering how he was gazing at the taller android. Conan was reminded, momentarily, of how sweet he could be, gently brushing some hair out of his partner's face. 

"Tell the story."

"Okay, okay." 

Pause.

"I meant now-"

"I know! I know.." 

A puff of frustration fell out of the android's lips, and Gavin scowled in the way that shows "he isn't really mad but he's trying desperately to look like it", sort of like an angry kitten. Conan stroked a hand through his hair gently and it was as though the detective had let out a purr. 'Cute', he thought. 

"Well, when I was staying at Elijah's, Chloe had gotten very enthusiastic about giving me a 'Deviant look' which really meant trying to get me out of my cyberlife jacket. She had been talking about all the attacks going on, which I think is what really convinced me to join the DPD. It'd been about two weeks, and she was doing more.. permanent stuff, to set me aside from other Connor models. I didn't have a name at the time. Well? 

"She had me sit down for about three hours and painted all of them. It was sweet. She talks to herself, you know- I suppose, really, she was speaking to me, but I didn't talk much back then. It was gentle things, about happiness and about love. She started connecting up the ones left on me by cyberlife and, well.. they're a full map of the constellations. She said it was because Elijah loved stargazing. There are little ones indicating love on my hands, and-"

"Conan don't you have some on your-" Gavin gave out a stifled laugh, sort of swallowing it down in a very obvious manner.

"Cyberlife." Conan spat, annoyed. "They painted eros on it."

"No shit-"

"Shut the fuck up." The android turned away from his human, pouting as though he were mocking Gavin.

Conan did not pout, usually, so this was a vaguely unfamiliar sight for the detective, who ran his fingers into the androids curls and tugged. This seemed successful, as the android let out a short noise and scowled most adorably. 

There was a moment: they stayed like that for only a moment. It was soft, Gavin thought, as he found himself pressed against the taller android. He played with the hem of his jumper, nuzzling into the crook of his neck and smirking as his curly haired lover protested. 

Then the moment was over, Gavin flopping to rest his head in the android's lap. Conan's eyes seemed to soften, and he smiled.

"It's a shame - Chloe got to see your first smile. That isn't fair." The shorter one spoke. It truly was. He found that Conan's smiles were somewhat addictive - he was sure he got high every time. He didn't ever want to live in a time where his boyfriend didn't smile. 

"Need I remind you that when we met, you were quite literally the reason I wasn't smiling."

"Yeah- Eli gave me a right talking to, it was embarrassing." 

"You should talk to him more."

Gavin frowned up at his boyfriend: mostly due to the fact that he knew he was right, and Gav wasn't too fond of that. 

"Last time we spoke, it was when he lectured me on treating you right. Said I can't pull any bullshit. Said I better.."

"Better what?"

Silence. Waiting in anticipation and sweet, delicious silence. It was the way Conan anxiously brushed his fingers over his knuckles that really made Gavin grit his teeth.

"Nothing bad - just.. that I better love you. For real. He kind of went on about it for a while."

The lines beneath Conan's plating blared red. Gavin was surprised to see his LED hadn't done the same, just to notice that it wasn't there at all.

"Hey, what happened to your-" 

Conan was maybe a little too quick to answer. 

"I thought.. maybe I should remove it - makes me feel more human, you know?"

"You don't /need/ to be more human." Gavin said with a scowl. "You're perfect just as you are. Who ever said you needed to be more human?" 

Conan's hands came to wrap around the Detective's shoulders. He thought about the ring in his pocket, and the blue/red/yellow dip within it. He briefly considered it, now. He had it on him, always ready. 

"No one did. I just wanted to. I'm sorry, love." 

Gavin found that he was shaking. Not quite with anger, no, he wasn't sure if he could be angry at Conan anymore. He was too kind. Too caring. Too soft. However, he felt upset with himself. He thought back to what he had said about Conan the day they met, wondering if such an insecurity about not being alive, or not being natural, had stuck with him for so long. This frustrated the detective to no end, and he shrugged off the touch on his shoulders. 

The android knew. 

"Gavin, please don't blame yourself-"

"Who says I shouldn't blame myself! Don't give me an excuse, I'm the one who maltreated you. It is my fault."

"But you always blame yourself. For everything-"

Gavin let go of Conan quickly. 

"Look. Just because my mother was a bitch doesn't mean I can act like an asshole." 

Lines glowing red along Conan's plating. Upset was heavyset in the android's face, as he held the Detective's face in his palms, synthetic skin pulling away. It was a tingling, warm feeling that comforted Gavin to an extent that left him utterly perplexed, stars in his eyes. 

"Your mother ingrained in your head that /everything/ you do is your fault. That isn't healthy. It's abusive, Gavin. She convinced you your entire family hated you, and left you to neglect at 16. It isn't fair on you, my love. I don't want you to live like that.." 

"And I won't-" 

He was silenced by Conan's kiss. Gentle on his lips. 

"I love you." The android said, and it was held back in his throat, strangled, almost. 

"I love you too." Reluctant, with the detective. 

"Turn the TV back on." He finally concluded, pushing Gavin back into his lap, pushing his nose into his hair. Gavin's shampoo smelled vaguely of petrichor and honey. It set his sensors buzzing. He considered the ring in his pocket. 

Not tonight. 

Tonight was special enough.


End file.
